


memories

by ProtoDan



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Brother Feels, Daddy Issues, Dead Mothers, Gen, POV Second Person, Reminiscing, Smol Yasuo, sometimes Yone tells complete lies and sometimes he doesn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:53:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5060074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoDan/pseuds/ProtoDan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell me about okaasan,” you say, turning your head to better look up at your brother.<br/>Yone meets your eyes for a moment, a smile touching the edges for a moment before he looks back up at the stars. “She was warm,” he begins.<br/>An image springs up in your head of a woman like a wildfire, fierce and terrible and wonderful all at once. “Like fire?” you ask, excited.<br/>“Like spring.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	memories

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm not JRR Tolkien, I didn't put in the effort to make an entire language based on the little snippets of Old Ionian Riot put into Yas's dialogue. As such, when I write Yasuo speaking his own language, he'll be using real-life Japanese.

The stars shine bright in the night sky, and you lift your little hand up as if to trace them all into lines and patterns. Yone traces them with you, his fingers curled around yours to guide them. He names the ones he knows, and maybe some he doesn’t–there’s really no way you could know, after all.

You call them the names he gives them anyway, fibs or no. They sound nice, anyway. A small sigh of contentment passes your lips, and you fairly lounge into your brother’s arms. (He agreed to let you dine outside tonight, provided he could join you. You were all too happy to accept.)

Your voice is small and soft in your throat when you finally speak. Nighttime is best for stories, and you love his stories so. “Tell me about  _okaasan_ ,” you say, turning your head to better look up at your brother.

Yone meets your eyes for a moment, a smile touching the edges for a moment before he looks back up at the stars. “She was warm,” he begins.

An image springs up in your head of a woman like a wildfire, fierce and terrible and wonderful all at once. “Like fire?” you ask, excited.

“Like spring,” he corrects, a chuckle lingering in his voice. “Warm, like the relief of new life after a harsh winter, the sprinkle of dewdrops on fresh grass. Full of light and love and hope…” His voice is wistful, and there is a sadness in his eyes that you rarely see. You almost regret asking, but he is the only one left who has known her, and you desperately need to know what she was like. “She was kind,” Yone says. “Kind and gentle, with a voice like a wood mouse.”

You giggle at that, and imagine a mouse the height of a human, walking about in a mouse  _yukata_  and doing human things with her little mousy hands. You imagine, nonsensically, what it might look like if Yone sprouted whiskers, and you have to cover your mouth with your hands to keep from laughing aloud.

Yone taps you on the side of the head, silently bidding you to shush. You obey, though your lips still tremble with a secret smile that desperately wants to be a laugh.

“She always wore her hair up,” he continues, tugging gently at your own ponytail. “Not like us, though–she kept it in a bun, held down with a comb. And on the comb was a lotus blossom.” He takes your hands, cupping them together as if there were a flower in your palms. “She told me that  _otousan_  had it enchanted when they were courting, so that it would never wilt or fade. If you held it to your nose, it still smelled as fresh as the day it was plucked.”

“Was she pretty?” you ask.

He smiles. “Of course. All mothers are–but she was the most beautiful,” he concedes as soon as you start to pull a face. “She gave you her eyes and her smile, but  _otousan_ ’s nose.” Yone taps at the organ as he says this, causing you to wrinkle it. 

“She was very happy you were coming,” he continues, smoothing the hairs stuck up along your scalp. “She kept telling me all of the places she would show you when you were born, all of the things she wanted you to see. She would tell me every day what you would be named if you were a boy or if you were a girl, as if I might forget otherwise.”

You snuggle further into your brother’s lap, the steady rhythm of his deep voice soothing and lulling you. A frown touches your brow. “Did she and  _otousan_  love one another?” you ask, your own voice quiet and solemn.

Yone hesitates. “She loved him dearly,” he says. “But she was sad, I think, because he was away so often.”

“Fighting for his lord?” These are stories you have had your  brother repeat time and again–tales of battle and glory, letting you see your father as a bold and honorable warrior fighting to keep his home and family safe. You’ve never questioned these stories, even though your home has always been so peaceful, so quiet. Yone told them to you, and so they must be true.

“Fighting for his lord,” Yone agrees, though there is a wrinkle between his eyebrows that wasn’t there before, a tightness in his eyes that you don’t yet have words for. “She worried that he would die, or some other terrible fate might befall him. But she did love him very much.”

You swallow, unaccountably nervous. “Did he love her too?”

There is a long, long, terrible silence. “Of course he did.” 

“Then why did he leave?” Two things you know as absolute truth–that your sweet, warm, kind mother is dead, and that your proud, noble warrior father left long, long ago, before you could ever know him. Every time you ask Yone why, he gives a different answer. But tonight…

“I don’t know,” Yone admits. “I truly don’t. He never said.” He seems so terribly, terribly sad now, and you feel a twist of guilt in your gut for being the cause.

You turn in his arms, folding your own around his waist and squeezing gently. He strokes your hair and squeezes back. The two of you stay like this for some time, silent but comfortable, while you listen to his heart beat and feel your own grow slower and slower with every passing minute.

When you yawn and stretch, Yone turns your tired, pliant body, putting his arms beneath your knees and your shoulders before lifting you up and carrying you back inside. Your eyes crack open, though you don’t remember shutting them, and when you look up, he’s smiling.

Yone carries you into the bedroom you share, laying you down on the unfolded  _futon_. He pulls a blanket over your shoulders, tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ears before standing.

He’s about to close the door when you speak up. “You’ll stay with me, won’t you?” you ask, your voice quiet but clear in the solemn silence.

You see his silhouette turn, and though you cannot see it, you imagine he is smiling. “I’ll be there every step of the way,” he promises.

The door slides shut, and you drift into quiet, peaceful slumber. Your dreams are filled with human-sized mice and mysterious warriors, and a warm, beautiful woman who loves you more than anything in this world. She kisses your nose and calls you  _Hiro-chan_ , and you adore her, you adore her absolutely.

**Author's Note:**

> So, because Riot is a bunch of butts and won't tell us what Yasuo's given birth name was, I had to come up with my own. Because I'm a sucker for meaningful names, I trawled BehindTheName for a good hour before I settled on "Hiroto", the kanji for which mean "large/great" and "soar/fly". ~*the more you know*~


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